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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22379983">Staying Inside the Lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GealachGirl/pseuds/GealachGirl'>GealachGirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Daredevil (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandonment Issues, Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, the things you learn as a kid tend to stick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:35:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,801</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22379983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GealachGirl/pseuds/GealachGirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy had come back after he found out about Daredevil, and then Matt fucked it up. Again and again. And it turns out the stories you tell yourself when you're young bury themselves deeper than you might think.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>163</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>DDE’s 2020 New Year’s Day Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Staying Inside the Lines</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/withinmelove/gifts">withinmelove</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm so sorry. My life got so chaotic.</p>
<p>But here's my other entry for the New Year's exchange. The prompts I used are:</p>
<p>
"but a sick abandoned animal wishes to be anything in the world but that which was once loved and now is left alone" from The Undying by Anne Boyer (book)</p><p>
and</p><p>
Call Out My Name by The Weeknd</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Matt heard the sirens approach, and he felt the asphalt vibrate through the knees of his jeans as footsteps pounded closer. It didn’t even occur to him to hide or do anything to stop all of the sensations.</p>
<p>He was too focused on what was missing.</p>
<p>“Dad?” he asked again. Again, despite the knowing voice in his head he was avoiding at all costs.</p>
<p>Just as a hand landed on his shoulder, Matt was thrown back into consciousness. There, he found his chest heaving and his hair stuck to his forehead. Springs dug into his body through the thin mattress, he could feel the metal indentations alongside the orphanage pajamas rubbing and scratching against his skin.</p>
<p>On unsteady legs, Matt crawled out of bed and listened to the orphanage around him to check that everyone was asleep. Then he stole down to the basement.</p>
<p>His internal clock told him it was about the right time for Stick to show up.</p>
<p>Pushing all his thoughts to the back of his head and focusing only on his body and how it moved sounded like a nice idea. By the time he came back up, it was likely the nightmare would have been boxed up and set aside again.</p>
<p>The basement was cold and silent when he got there and Matt told himself he was just early for once. Maybe that would make Stick forget about the stupid bracelet thing.</p>
<p>He started warming up to strengthen his argument. He was serious, he could be what Stick wanted.</p>
<p>Matt practiced for hours and almost fell asleep there before a nun found him and hounded him back upstairs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Stick made three, Matt reflected years later, when the shitty old man never came back for him. Three people who were out of his life because of him. Because he was wrong somehow.</p>
<p>Always in a different way.</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure what he’d done as a baby, but it must have been bad for his mother to leave and never come back. His dad had never explained why and Matt’s conclusion made the most sense.</p>
<p>Then his dad had died because Matt got too wrapped up in his idealism. It was one of those traits Stick had tried to make him get rid of. And because he couldn’t do that or cast off any of his pesky feelings, Stick had left too.</p>
<p>The foster families only drove the point home.</p>
<p>He’d been through three by now and the older he got the fewer they’d be. Blind kids were always more work, but it was the kind of vulnerable that cracked hearts when you were eleven. At fifteen-almost-sixteen it was more of a burden.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mr. Berg and the nuns had just finished the return paperwork.</p>
<p>The nuns thought the kids didn’t know what happened behind the closed office door. They were wrong, across the board, but their surety the kids couldn’t hear was safe until it came to Matt.</p>
<p>Matt could hear how the man tried to play off, again, how he was returning a blind boy to the orphanage. Matt was just a handful, they had a full house, and if he was going to act out, they really didn’t have the resources to help him.</p>
<p>“He got into another fight at school and he doesn’t interact with any of the other kids in the house. He also won’t eat anything we make for him. We just can’t do it anymore.”</p>
<p>“We understand.” Sister Grace’s voice was heavy. She’d heard this list of complaints before.</p>
<p>“He just disappeared when everyone was home and he didn’t seem to care when we worried.”</p>
<p>The Bergs didn’t believe in closed doors or privacy or quiet. With five other kids in the house, Matt had thanked God he was able to find the attic crawl space. Big enough for him and his homework. And just enough above the noise to get a thought or two in. In the house, Matt felt always felt like he was suffocating and his skin crawled at the sheer amount of sensations he couldn’t block out.</p>
<p>“And we really did try to talk to him. We know that these kids are all a little messed up, but he never listened. Or he didn’t seem to. It was hard to tell. But nothing changed and he never followed the house rules.”</p>
<p>After the first time the Bergs had ignored his quiet requests for sensory accommodation and told him to face them when they talked, Matt lost all interest in even pretending to try for them. That made the return just a little easier.</p>
<p>“We understand. Matthew has had a difficult life.”</p>
<p>“And we tried to be patient. But we just couldn’t do it anymore.”</p>
<p>Matt’s chest twisted hard, like he’d been stabbed and the blade turned. He clenched his fists and left the bench and his backpack behind.</p>
<p>As always, he went up.</p>
<p>The shingles were bumpy but familiar under him and they scraped against the palms of his hands. The sting felt good, right.</p>
<p>The sun had dipped below the buildings surrounding the church and the orphanage. Matt could smell the night air, with a bite of chill to prepare everyone for winter. The last time he’d been here, it had been late summer and the shingles had burned under his hands.</p>
<p>He rubbed a wrist over his eyes and swallowed against the threat of tears.</p>
<p>Because he didn’t want the Bergs and their inflexibility. Matt wanted better, wanted it so much it was like drowning, even when he knew he didn’t deserve it.</p>
<p>This one had gone downhill right away, so Matt had used it as an experiment. Normally, he tried to be what the families wanted. He tried to fit in that role as a sweet, little disabled boy. And he always messed it up.</p>
<p>There was always a bully to stop. Or school was overwhelming to his senses. Or people were ableist assholes, directly and indirectly. He always got angry, he always needed just a little too much, he was never what they wanted. He always slipped.</p>
<p>And he was always returned because they just couldn’t do it after he stopped being what they wanted.</p>
<p>Matt lifted his head into the breeze and hunched his shoulders a little and tried to think about anything else but this spiral downward. He could practically hear Stick’s voice mocking him for feeling sorry for himself.</p>
<p>He focused outward, on the noise around him.</p>
<p>Matt always heard everything in the neighborhood and he’d made a game of focusing in on certain blocks, and then down to a single spot. It was an expanded version of what he’d played before he’d been blinded since now he could usually tell what all the sirens were for if he tried hard enough.</p>
<p>Tonight, he decided he’d try going from neighborhood-wide down to one sound. Concentrating on that meant he wouldn’t notice when the Bergs left and the nuns started looking for him. Hard work was always the answer.</p>
<p>In only seven minutes, Matt cleared his head and zeroed in on what he thought was a single apartment. He just had to filter out a sound…</p>
<p>Someone was singing.</p>
<p>It was a-few-years-old Broadway, coming out of young vocal cords. They didn’t have the breath support to carry the song, and the voice was more like sing-song talking. And now that he’d listened to enough, Matt decided the voice, male, missed the melody by a note, or a half-step.</p>
<p>But he liked it.</p>
<p>The voice was bold and confident and unselfconscious which made it somewhat endearing. Matt found himself smiling around the pit that had been digging into his chest since he’d heard the Bergs talking about him late one night.</p>
<p>“For God’s sake, Frankie, knock it off. My ears are bleeding.” Matt started.</p>
<p>“Shut up, Theo. You don’t seem to care about the blood dripping from my ears when you talk to your girlfriend on the phone.”</p>
<p>“That’s the third home in four months, Helen. What are we going to do with him?”</p>
<p>“We keep trying, Grace. There’s got to be somewhere for him. It won’t be long until he’s off to college. Maybe we can emphasize that next time.”</p>
<p>“Are we sure he’s going to college?”</p>
<p>“Of course, he’s going to college. Matthew’s too smart not to. But that’s not happening tonight. And we aren’t finding another family tonight. Let it rest.”</p>
<p>“Maggie, no one knows where he is. He disappeared.”</p>
<p>“And he always shows up again. If he doesn’t, he clearly ran away and we don’t have to worry.”</p>
<p>Concentration shattered and the singing done, Matt took a deep breath to cage the raging hurt in his chest and climbed down from the roof to throw punches into the empty air of the basement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Everything changed when he went to college.</p>
<p>Matt met Foggy and, after a week, he felt interested in trying again.</p>
<p>Foggy recognized he was smart, he didn’t treat him differently for being blind and he thought Matt was a sweet, good person. In his eyes, Matt was funny and worth knowing and a best friend.</p>
<p>Matt liked that version of himself. It felt like a future, and validation for never joining Stick’s army or getting distracted from school.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But then Matt fell to the Devil and something cracked a little. And he loved it like he’d recovered something else he’d been missing all his life.</p>
<p>All he had to do was keep the Devil out of the light. Because, even though he was blind, Matt had become the best goddamn chameleon in the world.</p>
<p>In every new interaction, he learned what the other person expected, and he fit himself around it. There was a standard mold, and it usually just needed a bit of tweaking.</p>
<p>Then, he lost the design somewhere along the way, and when he picked it back up it was misshapen, bent in a few places. But he thought he could make it fit.</p>
<p>Matt was determined to make it fit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was hard when he wasn’t sure the shapes matched anymore, though.</p>
<p>“Matt, are you okay?” Foggy sounded like he was smiling, but his posture and minor fidgeting betrayed wariness.</p>
<p>“Yeah, buddy. Why do you ask?” Inwardly, Matt took a moment to assess himself and wonder what Foggy might see. Matt had been sitting at his desk all day, working on a case. He’d made coffee, he’d chatted when he and Foggy both had breaks. He thought he was being perfectly normal, but now he wasn’t sure.</p>
<p>Foggy hesitated for a long moment, and Matt could sense the wariness in him get stronger. “Uh, no reason. You just seemed kind of spacey.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Did he? How? What was he doing?</em>
</p>
<p>Matt shook his head. “Just thinking about the defense we should pursue for this client.”</p>
<p>“Sure.” Foggy shoved his hands in his pockets and he stood there looking at Matt. It was one of those moments when Matt couldn’t tell what he was thinking and he felt his own tension wind a little tighter.</p>
<p>For once, his life wasn’t flying dust and Matt had started to enjoy the settled feeling.</p>
<p>Foggy asked that question a lot, though, and Matt still wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer it. Foggy always seemed to think he was evading, no matter what he said. And Matt dreaded that building up and spilling over.</p>
<p>Foggy still didn’t say anything else. In fact, he got a little quieter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next time he suggested they all go out, Matt jumped on the invitation.</p>
<p>He couldn’t tell if it helped.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What does Foggy say when you two talk about me?” Matt asked. It was him and Karen in the office, and he heard the brush of hair and the shift of muscles as she turned her head to look at him. He didn’t have to hear the words to know what she’d say.</p>
<p>“I thought you could hear everything.” Matt couldn’t see her face or guess at a facial expression, but her skepticism leaked into her voice, so he could imagine.</p>
<p>“I don’t listen in on private conversations. That’s invasive.”</p>
<p>“But you’re still asking me.”</p>
<p>“It feels more honest that way.”</p>
<p>Karen snorted and Matt heard her lips pull away from her teeth as she smiled. She didn’t believe him. Or she didn’t understand what he meant.</p>
<p>For some reason, this was easier with Karen. Maybe because they’d both broken the glittering images they’d each had of the other.</p>
<p>Matt remembered the moment his had cracked in her eyes. Remembered being ordered out of her office. It didn’t hurt anymore, especially since it was an incomplete leaving. Especially since she’d moved on.</p>
<p>But Karen didn’t like not knowing things, and so she still had an idea of who he was. It didn’t matter that it was a little off.</p>
<p>Matt thought about what she expected and leaned back in his chair, made a conscious effort to relax into it. “Am I supposed to take that as refusal to comment, Miss Page?”</p>
<p>She laughed, bright and unburdened. “Something like that, Murdock. I can assure you it’s all good things.”</p>
<p>Matt eased a smile onto his face that didn’t quite match the twisting in his stomach. “Of course it is, but why does that have to be a secret?”</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t want it all going to your head.”</p>
<p>Matt laughed and nodded.</p>
<p>Hiding things had gotten him in trouble in the first place, so Matt had to keep that in mind, but he was also careful not to overwhelm. Too much was just as dangerous as not enough.</p>
<p>He remembered the moment Claire said she couldn’t do it anymore.</p>
<p>He remembered Foggy’s overwhelmed heartbeat and panicked breathing.</p>
<p>“I guess not,” he replied, smiling. Karen sounded like he’d given her what she wanted for now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So how many things can you hear right now?” Foggy asked.</p>
<p>After a moment of mental scramble, Matt dutifully listed off most things in the office, a few things in the building itself and nothing outside of that.</p>
<p>“What about what you can smell?”</p>
<p>That was a little harder. Matt tried to describe it casually. And still Foggy seemed disappointed, even though he didn’t say anything.</p>
<p>After only a moment of internal debate, Matt expanded his scope and told him about the unexpected smells most people didn’t think to notice. Foggy perked up and he laughed.</p>
<p>“Wait, there’s no way.”</p>
<p>Matt laughed too, assuring Foggy it was all true. But there was an off feeling in his stomach and he didn’t know how to fix it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On a cold night, Matt perched on the side of a roof, on alert for anything that might break the peace of the neighborhood.</p>
<p>Just when he decided all was clear, he caught a light, enticing floral scent. It hit him in the chest and sank to his stomach.</p>
<p>Elektra.</p>
<p>Matt had no way of knowing what happened to her. Part of him wanted to believe she’d gotten out, but he couldn’t confirm it, so he couldn’t deny the part of him that knew the Elektra part of his life was over. Permanently. That complicated, painful part of his life when he first felt it was possible for someone to understand every piece of him.</p>
<p>Before the smell could bury itself in his head and take him down a dangerous road, Matt moved on.</p>
<p>And he sensed something else. Something disturbing the peace. It sounded like a nice distraction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Matt, your lip’s bleeding.”</p>
<p>Matt dragged a hasty fist over his mouth and probed the inside of his lip with his tongue. There was no reason for that to still be bleeding.  </p>
<p>“Must have been a light night for that to be the only mark,” Foggy observed. “Or are you hiding more under the shirt?”</p>
<p>“I’m okay. This is it,” Matt said carefully. He didn’t like this. Talking about what he did at night still felt too sensitive. But he didn’t read any anger or fear from Foggy, or any of the subsets of those emotions.</p>
<p>“That’s good because I want you in tip-top shape later. We’re going out after work, just the two of us. Before you ask, it’s because it’s been too long, and I’ve missed spending quality time with you.”</p>
<p>Matt could feel Foggy going hot and hear the way his heart skittered nervously. He was invested in this outing, and Matt desperately wanted to keep him from moving any further away.</p>
<p>He smiled, and it felt more stable than the hope drifting under it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he let himself think about it, Matt realized there was something else fueling his investment in keeping Foggy.</p>
<p>It was a lot like what always drew him back to Elektra, and part of him knew that he couldn’t survive losing him. Not again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For the first time in years, Matt felt solid ground under him and Foggy. He didn’t have to try hard to be the person Foggy thought of as his best friend, even if he wasn’t exactly the same shape.</p>
<p>Daredevil hadn’t hovered over every word, and Matt did a fine job pretending his super senses didn’t exist. Fine enough that Foggy never asked about them. Matt thought he could learn to be okay with having all of it lurk in the background.</p>
<p>He’d learned his lesson about wanting more than that.</p>
<p>A single noise shattered the ease of the evening. Without thinking, Matt swung his cane out and into the coming attacker’s chest. He shoved Foggy toward the wall with his other hand.</p>
<p>Foggy sputtered and his voice was ragged. Everything about him shook. “Matt —”</p>
<p>“Foggy, get down,” he growled. He turned to block him and face the two jackasses who thought they were easy targets.</p>
<p>And all of his higher thinking was consumed.  </p>
<p>It wasn’t a hard fight, but there was a gun. Matt kept the action close and fast to eliminate any opportunities for the guy wielding it to fire. It only turned the gun into a blunt-force weapon, and one that got Matt in the ribs, the chest and a few internal organs. The other guy only had a pocket knife, but it was sharp and he was enthusiastic about swinging it.</p>
<p>They were sloppy enough it was easy to turn attacks against him into attacks pointed at the other, but dividing his attention between them and Foggy made the fight take longer than it should.</p>
<p>While Matt fended off another swing from the gun with his folded cane, the man with the knife slipped past him and tried to drag Foggy into the fight with a swipe of the blade. Foggy’s resulting yell was choked off and the coppery smell of blood polluted the air</p>
<p>The Devil roared and took over.</p>
<p>Matt drove an elbow into the windpipe of the man with the gun and whirled on the other. He grabbed his arm, twisted it until the knife clattered to the ground and broke the bone. While the man howled in pain, Matt tightened his grip and put a dress shoe to his sternum, driving the man toward the wall, which provided a perfect surface to keep him still while Matt punched him until the new smell of blood filled his senses.</p>
<p>He let that one crumple to the ground, and it only took him turning to the gun man for him to run away.</p>
<p>Which just left Foggy.</p>
<p>His heartbeat was faster than Matt had ever heard it and sweat stood out on his skin. More than that, Matt could hear the strain on his lungs and diaphragm as he hyperventilated. On the plus side, his blood had started to clot, and it seemed that the knife wound had already started closing, in a micro-biological way.</p>
<p>Matt reached down to help him to his feet and subtly checked him over for other injuries.</p>
<p>Foggy’s legs weren’t steady, so Matt supported him against his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Come on, buddy,” he grunted. He took in his surroundings and Foggy’s general state before he started hobbling in the direction he wanted.</p>
<p>Foggy was silent on the way, even when Matt picked him up to climb the stairs to his apartment. He made the most noise when Matt left him on the couch to retrieve the first aid kit from the bathroom.</p>
<p>It cast a terrible shadow over the night, and if he thought about it too much Matt felt a rock settle in his throat. Now that he wasn’t focused on protecting them, he realized what he’d done out there, and he had no desire to break the quiet.</p>
<p>Foggy sat still and stiff, but Matt reached out toward him anyway. Unwrapped gauze sat in his lap and he carefully cleaned the knife wound. It had started bleeding again, after moving, and Matt made quick work of patching it up.</p>
<p>It was all a strange mirror of that first night. The night Matt thought his world crashed down around him.</p>
<p>“There,” he said, smashing the quiet in an effort to soothe his rising anxiety. “You’re good to go.”</p>
<p>He tried to decipher what Foggy was thinking, but he couldn’t pick up any clues from his body. He did get a feeling the air had chilled. It stilled everything.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t sense them as a threat before they attacked and I tried to keep them away from you.”</p>
<p>Foggy’s hair shifted against his collar. He’d moved his head. “I know.” His voice was soft, but without emotion.</p>
<p>The hair on the back of Matt’s neck prickled, waiting for the signal to rise. Foggy’s heartbeat was steady, but elevated a few beats, and he’d started shivering a little. He barely smelled any different from usual, and the difference was easily explained by being attacked in an alley.</p>
<p>“You know, we should probably talk,” Foggy said. If the emotion was gone before, it rose up now. This voice was a familiar one. Matt had heard it right here on the night his life imploded again, though not forever that time.</p>
<p>But this was the third time. The charm.</p>
<p>Matt’s chest twisted. Without thinking, he went up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Matt remembered the way his breath echoed in that empty foyer. The only living, moving thing in the room.</p>
<p>He remembered how sticky Roscoe Sweeney’s blood was on his knuckles, and the way the smell filled the air, similarly sticky in his throat and nostrils. Elektra’s smell drifted beside it, growing fainter and fainter as the body bled out.</p>
<p>Her voice echoed in his head, urging him on, followed by the disappointment when she realized he wasn’t what she thought he was and he never would be.</p>
<p>Back then, it had seemed so long since he’d felt so absolutely alone. Matt had almost drowned in the hollow ache in his chest.</p>
<p>He was alone, and, even though it wasn’t the last time that knowledge would sink into him, it was the heaviest.</p>
<p>Or so he’d thought.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Unbelievably, Foggy had come back after he found out about Daredevil.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Foggy didn’t follow him, but he did stay downstairs in Matt’s apartment. His breathing was uneasy, but his heart pounded. He sounded on the edge of a decision, speaking or standing. Matt waited and summoned the willpower to get up like a Murdock should.</p>
<p>He couldn’t avoid the talk forever, he knew. Unless Foggy decided to call it then and there.</p>
<p>A long time ago, Matt had told Karen how he’d learned to push people away if he wanted to be successful. He thought he’d learned how to be better, especially after Foggy walked out of his apartment and Matt felt like an island for the first time since he was 18.</p>
<p>But he might be wrong. In moments like this, quiet and between two moments, Matt couldn’t help reliving, over and over again, the breaking point of Nelson and Murdock.</p>
<p>He could feel how the tension had been everywhere, squeezing both of them in that tiny room. He remembered how every word Foggy spoke thudded into him. And how his stomach had filled with lead when he walked out the door.</p>
<p>Matt remembered the feeling settling over him, the way it did after everyone left him, that he would give anything to rewind time to the second before he broke everything beyond repair.</p>
<p>In that, Matt realized just what Foggy meant to him. And how incredible to him it was that moment wasn’t the end. And Foggy walking out of Matt’s apartment wasn’t the end. Finding Matt on the roof with a bullet hole in his helmet wasn’t the end. Matt dying, then doing everything to push Foggy away wasn’t the end.</p>
<p>But everyone had a breaking point.</p>
<p>“Matt.”</p>
<p>And there was Foggy. Again.</p>
<p>“I won’t drag this out,” Foggy said, moving closer as he spoke. “You’ve been acting weird the past couple of weeks and I know the Fisk stuff was a big deal for you, maybe more than any of us, so I was trying to give you space. And I wanted to ask, but you already started acting like nothing happened, so I didn’t.” He sighed and the sound was too heavy and too ragged, like he’d been carrying it for a long time.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to upset you; I just want to know how I can help. Because losing you sucked and it felt like I lost myself at the same time. Especially when I knew you weren’t dead, just avoiding all of us. I’m not bailing, I just remembered this thing about communication and I thought it could maybe do what time hasn’t so far.”</p>
<p>For the first time in a long time, Matt heard his own heartbeat and its pounding as his blood carried adrenaline through his body.</p>
<p>And that reaction, which must have been visible, was enough to inspire Foggy to keep talking.  </p>
<p>“Look, I don’t want to lose you again because you’re the most important person in my life. I’ve thought about it a lot over the past few weeks and that’s what I’ve come up with,” he said. There was something to his voice, like he thought that declaration solved everything.</p>
<p>“I’m not worth it, Foggy. I’m not who you want me to be.” With that, Matt steered them back to reality.</p>
<p>He couldn’t decipher the sound Foggy made, something between a gasp and a sputter. It was outraged, which was the main point.</p>
<p>“What are you talking about?” he demanded. And there, he sounded a little irritated. His blood pressure had risen.</p>
<p>So had Matt’s breathing. A buzzing sound in his ears increased, too. It reminded him of fighting with Foggy in their former law office before he left for good.</p>
<p>“I’m not the person you met in college, or the one you left the corporate world for,” Matt told him. The words were sharp leaving his mouth, and he felt the scrape against his vocal folds. “I’ve been trying to figure out what you want from me now, who you think I am. But I can’t, and I’m only going to disappoint you. Maybe not now, but eventually. I always do.”</p>
<p>Matt wasn’t sure what the visual effect was, but he could feel himself pulling inward. It wasn’t a considerably safer place, but it was something not here.</p>
<p>He tried his old trick of focusing his senses on one thing, but it was different now that he was older. Despite everything, his ears defaulted to the sound he usually used to ground himself.</p>
<p>“What I want from you?” Foggy echoed. The fire had left his voice. Now it was just lost and a little confused. “Nothing. Just my best friend.”</p>
<p>“I’m not that person anymore! He was a lie, anyway. You know that by now.” Matt sounded desperate. Somehow, buried deep, the voice of a little boy yelling for his dad, echoed in his ears.</p>
<p>Foggy was quiet, but Matt could taste and smell the salt of his tears in the air. He could sense the way Foggy trembled. But still, he stayed quietly thinking.</p>
<p>“Just tell me what you want,” Matt said. His voice had broken and his senses were overwhelmed with even more salt, closer now. “I’m sorry things can’t go back to the way they used to be. That I’m not that person. But I can’t lose you. I can’t lie to you either, but maybe there’s something you can settle for?”</p>
<p>Matt could hear Stick’s voice in his head taunting him for crying, lecturing him about getting attached, telling him that love was for babies. None of it did any good.</p>
<p>Foggy still didn’t speak, but Matt listened to him breathing. Heard the way it caught in his nostrils because his nose was running. It pulled him out of his head a little bit.</p>
<p>The next breath Foggy pulled into his lungs was shaky, but it came through an open mouth and he held it while he gathered his words.</p>
<p>They were wet, but firm when Foggy said them.</p>
<p>“I want you, Matt. All of you. And that’s hardly settling. I get it now. You break the law and put all of us in danger because you’ve got supers senses and your Catholic guilt says you have to do something with them. I know you think you need to hide all that from me, and I know why. But I’ve adjusted, and I’ve figured out how all of that makes you who you are. And you’re what I’m here for.”</p>
<p>The cadence of his voice led down into a period, but the sound of him taking a breath betrayed that he wasn’t done yet. “I love you, Matt, in the kind of way that means I want to be in your life forever.”</p>
<p>Matt shook his head. “I don’t think that’s enough.” It hadn’t been with Elektra. Or Karen, though their brief relationship had been less intense.</p>
<p>And Foggy needed to understand that, so he could understand why Matt needed better advice than “just be yourself.” It had only taken two foster homes to realize that wasn’t the solution.</p>
<p>“Tell me what I’m supposed to do to keep you here.”</p>
<p>Foggy was quiet for a long time, though Matt could tell he wanted to talk them through this. He thought he could persuade Matt.</p>
<p>Then, with purpose, Foggy closed the space between them and crushed Matt to his chest. Matt’s senses lit up, and he realized he and Foggy hadn’t touched like this in a long time. The sense memory overwhelmed him and he grabbed Foggy back before he realized he’d decided to.</p>
<p>“Listen to me,” Foggy said over his shoulder. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it was fierce and it rang in Matt’s ears like a foghorn.</p>
<p>“I want my dorky, idealistic best friend who makes blind jokes and ableist people uncomfortable. I also want the guy who can smell what I had for breakfast yesterday and hear what the soup of the day is at our favorite restaurant.” His voice was firm and brooked no argument. Matt detected underlying heat, but it wasn’t pointed at him.</p>
<p>“If you want something to work on, how about you communicate better and learn that you don’t have to lie to me about your senses or Daredevil? I’m not going to leave you for any less than you lying about something important, buddy. That’s the line.” Foggy paused to inhale and then he finished strong. “Am I lying?”</p>
<p>Matt didn’t have to work to find the answer. It was all around him. “No.”</p>
<p>“I love you, Matty,” Foggy pronounced every word like its own declaration. “Daredevil and breaking the law don’t change that. I may get annoyed and storm off, but I’m not leaving. Surely you’ve figured that out by now.”</p>
<p>This time, Matt could feel the words on his skin and in the air around him. There was a softness to them, like Foggy knew exactly what he was saying. He adjusted his grip around him and tried to decide how much he believed them.</p>
<p>It was clear Foggy had worked on it because it rose and fell like his best closing statements. Matt understood the shape of the argument, and he could grasp the full thing. The sound of it was maybe more comforting than the words themselves.</p>
<p>He let his head relax onto Foggy’s shoulder. He felt suddenly exhausted, like he’d just finished a round with the heavy bag at Fogwell’s.</p>
<p>“Why?” he asked.</p>
<p>Foggy’s head settled against his. “Because you’re my favorite person. Why would I want to leave you?”</p>
<p>Matt listened to Foggy’s steady, regular heartbeat and concentrated so he could feel his pulse where they were touching.</p>
<p>The sound of him had always been grounding. Whether Matt was on the roof of the orphanage or across the room from Foggy. It had dug into Matt’s bones and he didn’t know how to live without it. Having Foggy in his life made everything clearer, even if it wasn’t always easier.</p>
<p>“So…” Foggy said after a few beats of what was silence for him. “Do you have anything else to say?” He sounded invested in the question, and he was holding some of his breath. Matt sighed and pushed through the thoughts circling his head.</p>
<p>“I believe you,” he decided, moving away so Foggy could see his face. “But I won’t always.” Some weight he’d been holding melted away.</p>
<p>Foggy’s voice smiled. “I can remind you. Anything else?” Matt frowned, and Foggy sighed, though it didn’t seem to be directed at him. “I don’t want to be pushy, but I meant it when I said I love you. Not just like friends…”</p>
<p>Blood ran up to his face, and Matt could hear the old, familiar off-beat of his heart that meant Foggy was flooded with nerves. After a moment, Matt smelled it and he could feel Foggy’s tightening muscles under his hands.  </p>
<p>He smiled, still exhausted, but his heart was climbing back up to its place in his chest. He put his forehead against Foggy’s.</p>
<p>“I know,” he said. “I thought it was obvious that I feel the same way.”</p>
<p>Foggy let out a shaky breath, like he was releasing his own exhaustion. After a moment of hesitation, he reached down for Matt’s hand and waited.</p>
<p>Matt closed his eyes and did the same with his fingers around Foggy’s hand.</p>
<p>“What now?” he asked. Foggy squeezed back, and everything about him was humming and warm.</p>
<p>“You stop doubting me and trying to convince me to leave. You absolutely don’t get to leave again. And then we take the rest step-by-step.”</p>
<p>Matt thought about it and tried a new approach of believing what Foggy told him. He nodded and his voice was a little hoarse when he finally spoke.</p>
<p>“I think I can do that.”</p>
<p> </p>
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